Sir Terry Pratchett and Sir Douglas Hague: two gentle knights depart

On Wednesday March 12th 2015 I learned of the deaths of Sir Terry Pratchett and shortly afterwards of Sir Douglas Hague. I like to think this coincidence would appeal to their shared sense of humour.

They are now linked together in my memory, one, a great creative writer I never met, and the other an economist and statesman who became a mentor for myself and for generations of business and economics students

Pratchett in the sky over India

I was introduced to the inspired fantasy world of Terry Pratchett many years ago by John Arnold when he shared his travel reading with me during a visit to meet business graduates in New Delhi. He had taken with him one of the early Discworld books.

John, himself a distinguished economist, could well have had something else in his carry-on bag written by our mutual colleague Douglas Hague. If he had, it is little surprise he had decided to fill a gap in my cultural rather than my economic knowledge.

Terry Pratchett’s creativity

I immediately became one of Terry Pratchett’s countless admirers. I remain richly entertained by the unique style of humour to be found in his books. He would have been an excellent subject for a deeper study of artistic creativity. Maybe, one day…

Terry Pratchett retained his glorious humour as his terminal illness prepared him for his personal encounter with death (and with Death). He chose to tweet: Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush.

Sir Douglas Hague

My memories of Douglas Hague are more direct, a result of a considerable number of years during which we were colleagues at Manchester Business School. The excellent obituary in The Times prompted me to offer a letter which may or may not be published in its columns.

Letter to The Times

Correction to Obituary of Sir Douglas Hague

Your careful and warm obituary to Sir Douglas Hague today [Thursday, March 12th, 2015] noted he founded The Manchester Business School. That is accurate to the extent that he was among a small influential group of ‘founding fathers’ whose numbers included Professor Grigor McClelland, the first Director of the School.

Might I add a personal note? Despite his economic and political achievements, Douglas was remarkably approachable by colleagues and students. As a junior research fellow, I once asked him in some trepidation whether he would review the latest heavyweight economics volume by Sir Nicholas Kalder for an internal networking broadsheet. He agreed without hesitation and met his deadline, although he could have placed his sparkling review in any of the leading scholarly journals.

He was sometimes teased for his unconditional admiration of, and frequent references to ‘Margaret’ in his lectures at Manchester. His loyalty survived an unfortunate remark of his which made the headlines and which appeared to challenge Mrs Thatcher’s housing policy. Unfortunately, his own formal position as economic adviser to the Iron Lady did not survive the remark.

Tudor Rickards, Professor Emeritus

The University of Manchester

Images

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Gods from Wikipedia; Image of Douglas Hague from a Margaret Thatcher memorial collection via The Said Business School, Oxford.